As moderator of Cannonball Read 5, I love all of my participants equally, but I must say, I do always enjoy a review by narfna. I think she’s one of those writers whose reviews fits right in here at Pajiba (hint, hint, Dustin!) - some SHOUTY, some filled with gifs, but all hilarious.

“That’s the basic idea behind this re-read — to read the series again with one question in mind: Why does this make me feel so good? What do I like about it, and why? WHY IS THIS SO WONDERFUL. “

Today, in conjunction with the rapidly-concluding Cannonball Read 5, I present the first installment from the Medicinal Reread, a close and detailed examination by narfna of the first chapter of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Note that the whole concept is a reread, which assumes you’ve read the series at least once, so be forewarned, there are spoilers below. Head over to the reread blog often to read more of the posts as they head through the series. They’re currently on The Order of the Phoenix (my favorite!), with The Deathy Hallows scheduled to finish up at the end of April.

Certain things are always mentioned when anyone talks about why it is that so many people love Harry Potter so very much: the hero’s journey, the fish out of water thing, the wish fulfillment thing (very deliberately not using the word ‘escapism’ here), Harry’s dual role as an Everyman and as The Chosen One, etc. But something that I never really hear people point to in this context is J.K. Rowling’s voice as an author. This is especially astounding to me not only because it’s the very first thing that drew me to this book, but also because it seems to me that her voice is what holds the rest of it together — all those other lovely, constantly shifting pieces of word and story. Right from the very first sentence of the very first chapter of the very first book, it’s obvious:

“Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you’d expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn’t hold with such nonsense.”

Even as a thirteen year old, this seemed different to me than the usual stuff I read. It was polite yet sassy. It was saying things that were maybe a bit over my head, things about being an adult, but which nonetheless were amusing and stuck with me. Every time that I’ve read it since, though it’s read a bit differently to me each time, it’s never failed to suck me in, to the point where if I accidentally pick the book up and read the first sentence, it’s often not until I reach the end of the chapter that I realize I’m still reading. I have done this on multiple occasions (including the first time I read the book — I found it abandoned on the floor of my sister’s room, picked it up, read the first chapter, and then stole it from her; I still don’t think she realizes I ever did that) . And the way she introduces the Dursleys! Uncle Vernon with his thick beefy neck, Aunt Petunia with her long skinny one, and both of them caring way too much about what other people think of them.

I have always loved that our first glimpse of Harry’s world is through the eyes of his aggressively normal Muggle relations, particularly the expansive Vernon Dursley. We know from later books (more on this in a bit) that while Petunia may certainly pretend a hatred and ignorance of the Wizarding World, she’s not exactly what she appears. But Vernon — yeah, it’s pretty much all on the surface with him. He kisses his priggish wife and chubby son goodbye, and then he spends the rest of his day alternately missing signs of the wonderful that occur practically under his nose, and pushing those he does see under the dusty rug in his brain that is reserved for Things That Cannot Be (“the get-ups you saw on young people!”). But cats reading maps, owls fluttering all over the place, people in cloaks, a whisper of the Potters … and then this:

“Mr. Dursley stood rooted to the spot. He had been hugged by a complete stranger. He also thought he had been called a Muggle, whatever that was. He was rattled. He hurried to his car and set off home, hoping he was imagining things, which he had never hoped before, because he didn’t approve of imagination.”

For as much as Vernon Dursley doesn’t approve of imagination, he sure does use it a lot — mostly to pretend things. In fact, both of the Dursleys are champion pretenders, pretending being the main way they get though their days. They pretend Petunia doesn’t have a sister named Lily, who was a witch who went away to Witch and Wizard school and who married a wizard; Vernon pretends here that nothing odd is going on around him, squashing down reality into little bite-sized pieces until it fits into his preconceived notion of What The World Should Be, until he can once again believe that he lives in a world where everyone is just like him. (I’m also thinking of an incident from the beginning of Chamber of Secrets when the Dursleys force Harry to stay shut away in his bedroom “pretending he’s not there” — this could actually describe their entire relationship with him, but there it’s just made more explicit than usual).

Even though I think Mr. and Mrs. Dursley are very entertaining on their own, all that excessive Dursleyishness makes what happens next seem all the more wonderful. After Vernon has finally manages to fall asleep, we meet Albus Dumbledore, who “didn’t seem to realise* that he had just arrived in a street where everything from his name to his boots was unwelcome.” Dumbledore is the living embodiment of everything the Dursleys work so hard pretending doesn’t exist. As soon as he puts out all the lights on Privet Drive with his ‘Put-Outer,’ we forget all about the Dursleys. And then the cat who’s been sitting on a wall all day, reading maps and upsetting Mr. Dursley with it’s non-cat behavior, turns into a severe looking woman who Dumbledore greets warmly. (“How did you know it was me?” “My dear Professor, I’ve never seen a cat sit so stiffly.”) The interaction that follows does a lot of heavy lifting in a short amount of time. By the time it’s over and everyone except Harry has left Privet Drive, we may not know exactly the details of their lives, but we do know exactly what kind of people they are, and we’ve barely met them.

We also learn the bare bones version of Harry’s story: that the reason owls have been flying around all day and people in strange cloaks ruined Mr. Dursley’s day is that someone called Voldemort has — unbelievably! — gone from the world, that Voldemort was unspeakably evil (to the point where people are reluctant to speak his name), and that according to McGonagall, Dumbledore is the only wizard Voldemort ever feared (“You flatter me … Voldemort had powers I’ll never have.” “Only because you’re too — well — noble to use them.”) We learn all of this in an organic fashion, piecing together the bits and pieces of McGonagall and Dumbledore’s, and later, Hagrid’s, conversation. She eases us into the story without resorting to clunky exposition. This is exactly how these characters would talk if this had really happened (WHICH OF COURSE IT DID). We get just enough information to understand what’s going on, and to tempt us to read further to find out more.

But the meat of their conversation isn’t in the veiled clues about Voldemort and Harry, or even the Wizarding World, it’s in the deep human emotions that these people display even from the very first chapter. It’s these same deeply felt emotions that clue us in to their characters:

“It seemed that Professor McGonagall had reached the point she was most anxious to discuss, the real reason she had been waiting on a cold hard wall all day, for neither as a cat nor as a woman had she fixed Dumbledore with such a piercing stare as she did now.”

While everyone else was out celebrating, McGonagall — who has to be the most stubborn, immovable woman I’ve ever read about — waited all day to hear news that was only going to devastate her. She is fierce and hard and very contained, and yet she feels things very deeply. It’s a really nice touch that when she starts asking Dumbledore about the rumors, that Lily and James Potter are dead, that Voldemort tried to kill Harry and failed, he can only bow his head. That he was only moments before yammering on about sherbet lemons makes his lack of words here even more notable. There’s real grief under there, grief he doesn’t have the words for at the moment, grief perhaps he doesn’t want to feel quite yet, and so he talks of Muggle sweets and scars shaped like the London Underground. And that’s Dumbledore’s character in a nutshell. Eccentric and kind on the outside, dark and unknowable on the inside. And then there’s Hagrid, a giant of a man who shows up on a flying motorbike with a sleeping baby Harry wrapped up in a blanket. Hagrid, wild and hairy, who gives baby Harry a big whiskery kiss before letting “out a howl like a wounded dog” at the thought of leaving him there. Hagrid, who McGonagall questions, but of whom Dumbledore says, “I would trust Hagrid with my life.” (This statements tells us two things: 1) That Hagrid and his appearance are strange even in the world these people come from, and 2) that Dumbledore is the kind of man who places his trust in people the general world mislikes.)

I noticed on this read through that she sets up Voldemort as the series antagonist in a very strange way (no idea on how many times I’ve actually read this chapter, by the way, although I do know it’s probably an obscenely high number). “After all he’s done … all the people he’s killed … he couldn’t kill a little boy?” McGonagall asks Dumbledore. So of course we’ve got the first hook of the story, the thing that will presumably keep us reading until we fall in love with the world and the characters and just can’t help ourselves anymore: How could a baby defeat a dark wizard, a fully grown man who we have just learned has powers even the wizened old man we automatically trust won’t use? This is the central mystery of the series, and it will keep unraveling throughout all seven books, but what I’m interested in is the way that she downplays his threat, treating the central mystery almost casually, like she’s in no rush to get to the answers. More importantly, Voldemort’s defeat is presented in such a hopeful manner in this first chapter (despite the tragic deaths of Harry’s parents). I think it’s important that the first time we hear about Voldemort’s defeat, it’s couched in terms of utter victory, like Voldemort is definitely dead and gone. Even up until book four, most of the Wizarding World takes it for granted that Voldemort is dead and the world is safe. It’s only later that we gradually begin to realize that Voldemort is still in the game, and I think his eventual resurrection in The Goblet of Fire is all the more threatening and forboding for how slow it takes to get us there. It gives us enough time to feel the same as the rest of the Wizarding World, and to dread their worst fears coming true. Will this really happen? Is it possible?

And of course, it’s fun on re-read to spot all the things that will come to mean much more later on: mentions as small as Ted Tonks the weatherman talking about owls (he turns out to be Tonks’ Muggle father), Sirius’s Black’s motorbike (the first time I re-read this book after reading Prisoner of Azkaban, I screamed out loud in surprise — his name had been there the whole time!), the Deluminator (which only gets a name in book seven), and stuff in chapter two as well: old Mrs. Figg, Aunt Marge, and Harry being a Parseltongue (which is explained only a book later). And of course, Harry’s scar, but I don’t think we should count that, as it was pretty obviously going to be important.

And so we come to the end of chapter one. Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Hagrid leave Harry on the Dursley’s doorstep with nothing but a letter containing secrets that he won’t learn until more than ten year later. Again, it’s such a mix of tragedy and hope.

“A breeze ruffled the neat hedges of Privet Drive, which lay silent and tidy under the inky sky, the very last place you would expect astonishing things to happen. Harry Potter rolled over inside his blankets without waking up. One small hand closed on the letter beside him and he slept on, not knowing he was special, not knowing he was famous, not knowing he would be woken in a few hours’ time by Mrs. Dursley’s scream as she opened the front door to put out the milk bottles, nor that he would spend the next few weeks being prodded and pinched by his cousin Dudley … He couldn’t know that at this very moment, people meeting in secret all over the country were holding up their glasses and saying in hushed voices: ‘To Harry Potter - the boy who lived!’”

I love the mix here of quiet normalcy and mysterious goings on all around it, the way that all the things Harry doesn’t know are like promises to us as well, that there are many things to come of which we know absolutely nothing, and that like Harry, sometime soon we will find out what they are. So ends one of my very most favorite opening chapters in literature, and a wonderful beginning to a story that has stuck with me (is still sticking heartily as we speak) for a very long time.

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Comments Are Welcome, Bigots and Trolls Are Not

Caity

Guess I'm not getting any work done today...

Haystacks

One of the first things that struck me the first time I re-read the Philosopher's Stone is the sheer amount of times she mentions that Harry's eyes are green. Half a dozen at least.

It made it so bizarre when the movies happened. All I could think is, "This is a 10 million dollar movie, they couldn't slap some colored contacts on the kid?"

narfna

He was allergic to the contact lenses so the filmmakers got permission from Jo to change Harry's eyes to blue. She said it was fine, the important thing was that he had his mother's eyes. So, as long as hers were blue as well, they were good.

Haystacks

I understand the whole thing. Still drove me nuts...you know they could have fixed that shit in post-op. That said, I am still annoyed every movie of books I adored did not consult me first when they decided what the characters would look like in the movies....

Donna SHerman

I did not know that. I thought they were just being lazy, the way they were in the fourth movie when they changed Hermione's dress from blue to pink. I remember being furious about that...

Haystacks

Also her hair was supposed to go from hella curly and frizzy to pin straight Chignon. Don't get me started about Hermione's non-canon hair.

In my imagination, her hair looked like this....

Jesus the image was bigger than I thought. Sorry people.

narfna

Have you seen the discussion between Daniel Radcliffe and JK Rowling on the Deathly Hallows blu-ray? If not, it's worth a watch, and they specifically address how all the characters were made beautiful. Rowling loves all the actors but does miss her ugly duckling characters. She actually uses the word "nerdy," which made me love her even more.

Donna SHerman

I KNOW. It was supposed to be such a big deal, and because around the third movie they completely forgot about bothering to pay attention to the canon descriptions of any character, instead of being this huge moment, it was just - there's Hermione's hair again. And?

narfna

Not sure I deserve all this eloquence on the part of mswas, but I will accept it if it means more people will come over and read our project. My fellow contributors have been writing some awesome stuff, and relatively few people have been reading it.

Thanks for the exposure, Pajiba! 'Tis much appreciated.

Berry

Your project sounds awesome, and I'll definitely check out the blog. Can't participate in the actual re-reading part though, because I promised myself that once I read the last word of Deathly Hallows I'd be done with Potter. Not because I wouldn't enjoy rereading the books, but because I'd probably enjoy it too much. I prone to obsessive behavior over my favorite works of fiction, and could probably spend the rest of my life doing nothing but rereading and re-watching, if I allowed myself that.

narfna

No! Do it! Re-read! It's so much fun the second time, because you can totally see how she put all the pieces together!

I have not read these books since they were first published. Now, thanks to you assholes, I have to climb all those damn stairs up to the Book Room and root around in the fucking bookshelves and find 'em all and bring 'em down, and I have to do it NOW.If I get a hernia it is on you assholes.

narfna

I will gladly claim the title of asshole in that circumstance. (In regards to the reading, not the hernia.)

baxlala

Hooray! So exited that Ashley's awesome project is being recognized here! (And not JUST because I'm participating in it. Hee.)

stella

Well off to reread the Potter series along with you. Awesome review!

narfna

Thanks! Come join us in the comments. We love having new people to play with.

Maddy

How did I not realise the weatherman was Tonks father? And I consider myself a pretty hardcore Potter fan. This very eloquently summarised why this series is so dear to me.

narfna

I'm still convinced there are more secrets like Ted Tonks hiding in plain sight in those books. Every time I read them, I find new ones.

And thanks!

BWeaves

Agreed. I didn't realize that about Tonk's father, either.

One of the things I really, really love about the Harry Potter books, is that Rowling ties everything together. Chekhov's Gun. Everything shows up later in one form or another. It's the same reason I don't like the Narnia stories. Lewis introduces characters and magical items, and then drops them so completely, that you wonder why they were mentioned in the first place.

Rebecca Hachmyer

The Narnia stories are definitely part of my personal cannon so now I am very curious-- what are some examples of this? Is possible that they are so dear to me that I cannot read them with a critical eye (the same with Anne of Green Gables) but I am a children's book person by trade so I'd love to know more!

Salieri2

There is a bit somewhere in The Last Battle where the topic of Susan's appalling treason against Narnia is brought up and dismissed within a couple of lines about lipstick and nylons. You can see a brief, straw-man discussion of it here (I largely disagree with most of Stuart Buck's take, but it does include the whole passage and can lead you to some right- or wrong-headed Narnia bashing if you're interested in any of that): http://stuartbuck.blogspot.com...

My own dislike of this passage stems mainly from two things: the first is that this is so clearly C.S. Lewis's voice in Peter's, Lucy's, Edward's mouths. His narrative voice is already so much his own that I wonder that he bothered putting this plot development into dialogue rather than exposition; but he did, and it yanks me right out of the narrative and into a hard pew. I don't think he's especially good at separating his own voice from his heroic human characters, but this is particularly heavy-handed example.

Secondly, as clunky attempted analogy to leaving the Church, it's fine as far as it goes (A for effort), but it's so emotionally unbelievable that it's cognitively dissonant. This is where he stretches the Narnia/Christianity metaphor past its breaking point for me. Susan literally lived a lifetime and a bit as a queen in an alternate world--physically experienced round trips between two worlds twice--and now regards those years of her actual lived experience, which was shared with three other people, as make-believe? That is less believable than talking lions and sticks out like a sore thumb; I'm not willing to hang the label "misogyny" around his neck for the lipstick/nylon thing, but I wouldn't go so far as to call him a friend of my people either. I can see where he and Tolkien could be friends.

I think Lewis's imagination is excellent, but his emotional understanding of how human beings actually think and feel is spotty-to-poor, and he doesn't bother to follow his ideas to their logical conclusions. There's a lot about Tash and the Calormenes that leaves a bad taste in my mouth too, and, like jerce, I feel condescended to, as if he thought his half-assery was good enough.

Rebecca Hachmyer

I reread the whole series fairly regularly but have managed to convince myself that it is a 6-book series and that The Last Battle doesn't exist. Not sure what was going on there-- I think Lewis must have been in a really different head space when he wrote that one. I agree that Susan's exile from Narnia is super problematic, but overall, I just don't see the introduction and subsequent dropping of characters and magical items to which BWeaves alludes.

Salieri2

Ah, perhaps my inability to parse paragraph indents is showing--I thought you were after examples of Lewis being a "smirking little smartass" or "contemptuous." Which may be overstatement as applied to those bits above, but IMO they contain the same nugget of aloof dickery.

I haven't reread them with an eye towards character/object dropping, but certainly there's not a lot of overarching cohesiveness to the series: I get no sense that he planned them as a...septology?...with a unified arc or anything like that. Maybe BWeaves is talking about how disparate the plots and characters are from book to book, despite reappearances in book 7? I think Lewis was simply a much better Christian apologist than fiction writer.

But I must admit: every time I accidentally fall asleep fully clothed and wake up all awkward because of lady-undergarment-shifting, I do say to myself

"Been sleeping in my saddle, eh? I'll never do that again. Most uncomfortable."

BWeaves

It's been years since I've read them, so I don't remember the details. I just remember that's what I thought when I read them.

Not to de-rail the topic, but Lewis really, really irritates me; and it took me a long time to figure out why: Lewis has no respect whatsoever for his audience. He was a talented writer and storyteller with a great imagination, and often had worthwhile ideas; and yet the more I read of him the more I came to dislike him.At base he was just a smirking little smartass. At best he is condescending to the reader, and and worst, contemptuous.

And now back to Rowling, a much better writer with much better messages!

BWeaves

I'm so glad I'm not the only one who dislikes Lewis.

I love the IDEA of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, but I just hated the story as written.